


Off With His Head

by Grelle



Series: Creepypasta [6]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grelle/pseuds/Grelle
Summary: The origin's of the White Rabbit. This goes along with the story 'Too Late'.





	Off With His Head

Perfect. It was the best word to describe her in his mind. The world around them was nothing but a blur as he sat in the small, crowded hospital room, holding the tiny infant bundled in a red blanket. She was so small, smaller than was normal the doctor said, but she seemed healthy otherwise. With her bright red hair, just like his own. And her green eyes like his as well, she looked almost nothing like her mother. Not that he currently was worried over. No, no he was far too thrilled to simply be holding his daughter. His first baby. Maximus Marshal Mayhem was the happiest father in the world in that very moment and nothing could ruin it for him, not even the pounding headache he had or the way his lungs felt like they were burning lately. The pain was numbed totally by his joy. “What are you going to name her?” A nurse asked of his wife, April, cheerfully. The tired woman let out a sigh and shook her head, damp brown hair sticking to her cheeks and shoulders where the hospital gown had dropped a bit off them, “Hell if I know...Max, what do you want to name her? After all you’re the one who demanded we keep her…” 

Max lifted his green eyes to his wife, only a little sorrow dampening the joy in his heart at his wife’s disregard of their new baby, why was she so cold about this? Ever since she had gotten pregnant she had changed drastically, from being a loving, kind housewife to...to this ice queen. The redheaded man smiled a bit, looking down at the small child he was rocking carefully in his arms, wrapped so delicately in a warm crimson blanket. He looked ready to cry and whither this was tears of happiness or pain was anyone’s guess. “How about...Mary? I-I’ve always been fond of that name…” He replied at last, the nurse shooting him a small smile, before writing it down on her birth certificate. “It was the name of the head nun at the orphanage I grew up in...She was like a mother to me…” April rolled her eyes a him, laying her head back and proceeding to ignore him as he fawned over his daughter. 

Those first few years had been bliss to Maximus. Six years of taking care of the greatest little joy he had ever known, nothing in his life before that could hold a candle to the feeling of being a father in his mind. Not the day he had met April or the years he spent in raptured with her. Nor the years singing in his band or going on the road for months at a time. Things he gave up gladly to get a job close to home and be able to raise his little Mary. After the childhood he had had he honestly thought life had finally dealt him a good hand, was allowing him to raise his little girl in a loving home he had been denied as a boy. Max thought that his life was at last perfect.

But, as they say, all good things end. And end they did, around the time his beloved daughter turned five his world began to crumble. First it was the shortness of breath, then the fatigue. Before long he found himself fainting at random from severe dizzy spells and finally...the blood. The redhead soaked rag after rag, coughing the stuff up until he passed out. He could still clearly recall sitting on the table in the doctor’s office, struggling to draw in a breath as he had just ceased from another coughing fit. His shirt off, revealing the bruises he had not noticed till that day. The doctor had heaved a sorrowful sigh, glancing at the small child seated next to her mother, before looking at Max, “Wh-what is it...doctor?” The redhead man had stammered to get out, his voice hoarse and raw, “Perhaps it’s best if the little one waits outside?”

Six year old Mary lifted bright green eyes, looking so innocently confused at her father. But it was her mother who shooed her out with a small huff of annoyance, telling her not to go anywhere. Once they were alone, the doctor again looked at him, “I’m sorry to say...but you have stage three cancer in your lungs...The test results came back that it is indeed spreading, rapidly. We can medicate and try chemo, but...I am sorry Mr. Mayhem, it really doesn’t look good. I only wish we could have caught this sooner...”

Max paled considerable, looking nearly as white as the walls around them, feeling as if the rug had been ripped out from under him. Shaking his head slowly, “No...I…” He couldn’t even put it into words as he let out a quiet sob, putting his face in his hands. _ ‘Could the world really be so cruel?’ _ He had wondered, the world showed him its true colors, it’s cold merciless darkness. From there the illness only grew worse, he could remember only so many bits and pieces. Feeling sick and weak all the time, but he had tried so hard to keep his head up. To keep being the father his Mary needed...And when her fits, as her mother called them, started he had tried even harder. The poor child would simply start panicking all at once for no reason, begging people to save her from the monster, from this thing she called Pop. But it was so hard. There were days it was impossible to even hold his head up for long. Days he could not even hug his daughter without wanting to cry out in anguish.

Much of the time Max could to little more than watch was as his wife mistreated the smaller redhead, either verbally or otherwise. He hated it, hated himself for allowing such a thing to happen and as if it couldn’t get worse the treatments were failing to do little more than slow the process of his death. Growing more and more desperate for a solution he tried everything he could think of, medicinal, even spiritual. Max had never been superstitious or even all that religious, growing up an orphan and being returned by family after family had destroyed his belief in higher powers. After all what sort of all powerful, all kind God could be so cruel to allow things like that. Or even allow what was happening to his own daughter at the hands of her cruel mother?! If there was indeed a God he felt he must be a truly malicious and blind one. Nonetheless Max diligently prayed at every church he could find within a hundred miles, talked to every priest from every religious house there was. Nothing they did seem to help at all. Finally, whilst seeking more places online he ran across an article about a Satanic cult in a town not far, how they supposedly were run by a group of immortal priests that had done some sort of ritual...A ritual which he quickly started looking for. He knew it was insane, knew it likely would do him no good...but by then he was willing to do anything to live. Anything to keep his daughter from his wife. But the very day he intended to do the ritual his wife had had enough of Mary’s fits, said she couldn’t take it any longer. They fought, argued for hours, screaming at one another until Max finally collapsed from the stress. Vomiting up large amounts of blood before fainting on the living room carpet in a heap.

When he came to they were in the car, he knew he must have walked there, but could not recall the time between passing out and getting in the vehicle. Only that it was now parked outside a Mental Institution named Rose Haven, as proclaimed by the small plaque at the bottom of the massive set of stairs. He was alone, he realized, looking around him in the car, his heart sinking into his stomach like a stone in a pond. Stumbling from the passenger seat, he clambered up the stairs of the hospital and into the waiting room where they were already fighting his ten year old child into a straight-jacket as she kicked and screamed. Tears streaming down her pale face, already bruised green eyes seeking him out at once. “Daddy! Daddy!? Please don’t let them take me away! I-I promise to behave! I promise! I-I’m not crazy! Daddy!” The small girl pleaded, sobbing her heart out as her father tried to reach her. Getting hardly a few feet across the room before he felt his legs virtually turn to mush under him, knees giving out as he hit the floor hard. The world seemed to spin in front of him as he struggled to lift his head, the edges of his vision going dark and closing in. Maximus was helpless as he watched them take his beloved daughter away.

The next time he awoke he was again at home, staring up at the ceiling in his bedroom as his wife slept soundly at his side. Unaware as her husband slipped from their bed and went to gather the things for this ritual he needed to perform. The sooner it was done, the sooner he could rescue his precious baby girl. Or so he had thought as he walked out into the woods, having driven far from his home, carrying a duffle bag with the items he had read online he would need. A dagger, salt, candles, and one live rabbit with pitch black fur which was bond in a burlap bag within. Finding the most ideal spot he could, Max set to work. Taking the salt and drawing a pentagram on the ground in it, lining it with candles at each point on the star which he lit one by one afterward. With the dagger he painfully began carving a star into his own chest, crying out at the burning pain it caused, ignoring as best he could the dizzying feeling the blood loss brought. Falling to his knees on the ground, he sat panting for sometime, tears leaking to join the blood that stained the grass beneath him. With the first star done he proceeded to carve out the second, by jamming the daggers hilt into a knot hole in an old tree. Having to move and shift to draw it, this one hurt far more and took much longer to make, went far deeper he was certain.

Crawling to the salt circle he shakily pulled the hare from its confines, holding it as still as his trembling fingers would allow...before plunging the dagger into the creatures gut and spilling its innards into the center of the pentagram. He felt like he might vomit at the sight, his stomach giving a violent twist. Max loved animals and the thought of killing one had eaten him up when he had found this ritual, but he was so desperate he would likely have killed another person if it meant saving his child from a miserable life with his wife. Taking calming breaths, Max began to chant and chant until his throat was raw from it. Till he could no long form audible words. And again, he fainted, this time from the exhaustion and wounds he had caused himself. This time, when he awoke, it was in a hospital bed. And this time...he never got up from it. Only briefly could he recall being there, only long enough to see his wife, the treacherous whore that she was, making out with a male nurse as he lay dying in his bed. It was the last thing he saw as he cursed the very heavens and his heart beat its very last.

Maximus Marshall Mayhem was pronounced dead at 3:15 in the morning on August 5th of 2012, three days later he was buried in a small cemetery in Texas. His wife soon remarried, less than a few months after his death in fact. She picked up and moved, taking Mary with her to a new home in some far off town. Max of course knew of none of these things, time was lost to him as he felt adrift in the darkness. He thought that he might never see the light again, never see anything, hear anything. Like his daughters smile or her laughter, things which brought him comfort in the blackness he was afloat in. The next sound that reached him in this infamy was the heavy boom of thunder and the soft drown of rain against the Earth. Max felt heavy all at once, like someone had attached weights to him, sucking in a sharp breath as his eyes shot open. The dark seeming to run from his vision, though he knew not yet why, realizing he was in a very small space. Instantly he felt claustrophobic, beginning to struggle and shout for help in vain. 

Clawing at the lid of what was no doubt a coffin, begging to be let out. And it felt like eternity before he managed to break through the wooden lid of the cheap box he had been buried in, fingers hitting cold dirt that started falling down on top of him. The panic worsening, the air growing thinner, tears pricking his eyes as he continued to fight for his life. He assumed it was a mistake, they had buried him alive on accident. Surely?! Time seemed to literally crawl as he dug himself to eventual freedom, thrusting his arm into the chilled rainy air and pulling himself up. Gasping for fresh oxygen, gulping down as much as he could without choking. Max crawled out onto the muddy grass, not even taking note of the fact his grave was not in fact a fresh one. What should have been a fresh dirt mound had long since settled and grown with grass. But only one thing crossed his mind as he pulled himself to his feet shakily, Mary. He needed to find her, needed to save her. Wanted to take her far far away from that horrible hospital and her disgusting mother! Stumbling forward, wearing only the tattered suit he had been buried in, he sought to figure out where he was and how to find home. This took a bit of time, it was dark after all and rainy. But once he had, he all but ran home, paying no mind to cars that past him on the road or splashed him with more water. He knew he must look a frightening mess, knew well enough his ‘beloved’ wife would panic at the sight of him, but he did not care nor did he slow his pace. Reaching the lovely two story home with its white washed fence in record time…

Except that it was not lovely and the fence was no longer white. In fact it was dirty and brown and falling down, the house looked abandoned. Looked as if it had been empty a very long time he realized as he pushed open the front door that barely clung to its hinges, nearly falling off as he slowly came inside the cold house, the metal creaking as it swung loosely. Max frowned deeply, “Hello…?” He called out softly, looking around the once warm, comfortable living room that now sat untouched and dust covered. Searching the first floor proved fruitless, no clues to be found, though he did find old photos still hanging on the walls here and there. They all seemed to include himself too, he realized. One in particular, was of himself the day Mary was born. In it he was holding her, cradling her close and protective. Taking the picture down he stared at it a long time, feeling as if he heart were shattering. Where was his Mary now? Why wasn’t she there…? Where had April taken her?

Drifting up the stairs, Max located Mary’s old bedroom. It was empty, like the rest of the house, but for a few things. Mostly trash. But, he found an old black ribbon on the floor, instantly recognizing it as something that had been on one of her stuffed animals he had given her for her second birthday. Clutching the small, silken article close, he looked about. Spotting a mirror on the back of her door, which had drifted almost shut when he entered, he froze a moment. Spotting someone in it he did not recognize. Cautiously he moved closer to it, pushing the door more closed for a better look. The picture slipped from his fingers, glass shattering across the floor with an echoing smash.

Maximus was stunned at what he saw. At the creature that peered back at him in the reflective surface. Shaking fingers reaching out, seeing the thing doing the same and jerking back as if he had been stung. Was that...him? He was pale as a ghost, his once firey red head now white as fresh snow. But this was not what scared him, what made him scream in terror and anger at his own reflection. He had not noticed the claws, black as pitch, that grew from his fingertips till then. Gripping his hair and pulling at it violently. Staring in horror at the sight of the horns spiraling up from his head. The glowing silver eyes that peered at him from pools of pure darkness. Trembling as he tore open the suit coat and shirt he wore, gazing in horror at the now black and rotten star carved into his chest. The ritual...was this its result?! Turning him into some sort of monster! He could not face his Mary like this! She would be so frightened! The whitette swayed on his feet, falling to his knees on the floor, leaning forward on his hands as he cried out in anguish once more. What sort of cruel fate was this?! It wasn’t fair! This wasn’t fair! None of it! His whole life had been nothing but misery and deceit! Could he not have this one thing?! This one little joy?! 

In that moment something seemed to snap in his mind, his sobs turning to crazed laughter as he gazed up at himself in the mirror. “N-no...I-I must find her...my Mary...She’s waiting for Daddy to save her...I have to..save Mary…Ehehehe~” His image, in his own head, turned back to that of the red headed punk rocker he had once been. Eyes brilliant green, skin sun-kissed and healthy. Nothing was wrong. He was fine. He wasn’t a monster...April was the monster. He had to be the hero! Mary’s hero! That’s what daddy’s did after all. Lifting his hands, he ran his fingers through his long hair, pulling the waist length locks over his shoulder and carefully braiding them in the way his little girl had always said she liked. Lifting the black ribbon and tieing off the end in a neat bow, a dream like smile on his face. Getting to his feet, picking up the photo out of its frame, he wandered into his old bedroom, not shocked to find his clothes still in the closet. Selecting from them white leather pants and his favorite black trench coat that he once wore on tour with his band back in the day. Pulling on some old black hiking boots, before stuffing the picture of him and his daughter into his pocket after one last longing look. 

 

**_To Be Continued..._ **


End file.
